In this concise 6‑questions‑in‑7‑minutes interview, Professor Pete Alexander talks with Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, a cognitive neuroscientist, behavioral economist, and self‑described "disaster avoidance" expert. Tsipursky explains his mission to help leaders avoid catastrophic decisions by applying evidence‑based decision science. He recounts how witnessing the dot‑com bust motivated his career, and he stresses the importance of long‑term planning and work‑life balance over short‑term sprint thinking. The conversation pivots to the dangers of relying on gut instincts, especially in the context of the COVID‑19 pandemic, where many leaders exhibit maladaptive fight‑or‑flight responses. Tsipursky cites the Boeing 737 MAX debacle as a high‑profile example of gut‑driven, poorly vetted decisions. He shares his professional background—starting as a trainer for Kaplan—and describes his current venture, Disaster Avoidance Experts, a six‑person consulting and coaching firm. The interview concludes with promotion of his book Never Go with Your Gut and a suite of free and paid resources (online class, website, LinkedIn) for leaders seeking better decision‑making frameworks.
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
My name is Gleb Tsyproporskiy, and I am a disaster avoidance expert. So what does that mean? Well, I'm a cognitive neuroscientist and behavioral economist, and I study how people make decisions. Especially bad decisions, because the bad decisions are the ones that tend to lead to disasters. And what I want to do is help people avoid bad decisions. So I look at how people make decisions and how to specifically prevent the bad decisions and ensure maximize the good decisions that lead to business success.
Dr. Sapersky, thank you so much for being on the show. Question number 2: What's the best thing about working in your industry?
The best thing about working in my industry, disaster avoidance, is that I help people really succeed in addressing various problems, issues that cause suffering. That's something that I've been passionate about since I was a kid. I saw people suffering and I saw that they're suffering because of bad decisions. I actually grew up around the time of the dot-com boom and bust. So I saw a lot of folks who did not need to go bankrupt, who didn't need to lose their life savings, lose their life savings and go bankrupt. That was pretty bad for me and that caused me quite quite a bit of trauma. And that is when I really decided that because of the bad decisions in the dot-com boom and bust, which the top business leaders were making, I needed to do something to help them out, to help out people make better decisions. And that's what led me into my career.
Oh, that's excellent. Question number 3: I hear from other business leaders that staying in a good work-life balance for them and their team members is a challenge. What are your thoughts?
My thoughts, that is, that it's part of making good decisions. You really want to focus on making the long-term long-term decisions. Too many entrepreneurs, too many business leaders, they really go for the short term. They focus on making life and business a sprint when it's really a marathon. And they need to think about investing into themselves in the long term and into their company in the long term, not simply working in the business, but also working on the business and on themselves, on their professional development, having a 5-year plan instead of a 2-week plan, instead of a quarter-long plan. So that is what something that I help them accomplish. That's something that's really important for me to do for myself as well.
Well, you must be in popular demand, I can tell you.
Thank you. Thank you. Yes.
Question number 4: What other successful business leaders like yourself should be on my podcast?
I have a few folks. I can email them to you later.
Excellent. Question number 5: What insight or advice would you give to other business leaders?
Well, my newest book is called "Never Go with Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters." And I would tell them to never go with their gut. There's a reason that's the title of my book. Well, that's very counterintuitive advice. A lot of folks you'll hear tell you to go with your gut, follow your intuitions, trust your heart. Unfortunately, recent research in cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics has shown that's just not the case. That's not evidence-based business. What you need to do in order to make good decisions is see where your gut is leading you astray because our gut is actually adapted for the savanna environment. It's not adapted for the modern business environment. Uh, for example, our primary response to threats is the fight or flight response. Now that was great in the savanna environment when we had to jump at 100 shadows to get away from that one saber-toothed tiger. It's also called the saber-toothed tiger response. But right now you might notice there are many less saber-toothed tigers around, but we still have the fight or flight response. That's why in response to, for example, the COVID-19 pandemic, what you're seeing is a lot of business leaders who are either one, well, one dynamic is the flight response where they're denying the reality of the pandemic and they're saying it's not really a big deal. It's just like the common cold. Why are you all worried about it? And of course they are not going to be in a good position once they and their employees are getting ill. And of course the recession is impacting them. So that's one dynamic. The fight response is people who are very short-term oriented and say, "This is an emergency, we need to do everything." They're like the panic hoarders who are buying up all the toilet paper. They're not having the right business response either. We are not adapted to deal with slow-moving train wrecks like the COVID-19 pandemic. Right now, the vast majority of business leaders who are responding to it in the fight response are thinking it's like Houston getting flooded. It's like that 2-week emergency. That's not the right response. It's like Houston getting flooded and staying flooded. And then we're living in Houston being flooded. Now we have to use boats to get to various places. That's where we are in right now. So that is the situation that you have to adapt for. We're in the new normal and you have to make a long-term plan to adapt to this new normal. And that's something that's very counterintuitive to us. So it's just one out of many examples where business leaders make bad decisions because they follow their gut.
Yeah, and I can't emphasize that enough because in my surroundings, I always hear people saying, well, I'm gonna go with my gut in this particular situation. And that's because they don't wanna spend the time to analyze all the different options more. They just wanna make it a quick decision. And that, from what you're saying, if I understand you correctly, could just be devastating.
It really could be. And it really is very often. There's a reason about half of all startups fail within the first 5 years. 2/3 fail within the first 10 years, and 3/4 fail within the first 15 years because business leaders, startup leaders tend to go with their gut. And of course, large businesses fail as well. It's just that the damage from each individual decision is not quite as bad. But look at the kind of decision-making that Boeing has made that led to terrible decisions and terrible outcomes for the 737 MAX. Mm-hmm.
Very insightful. And question number 6, tell me about your first job.
My first job was actually as a trainer, trainer for Kaplan. So Kaplan is a training company for testing. And so that's how I got into training, consulting, and coaching in the first place. That gave me my first job and that's where I learned skills that I later enabled. So right now my company is Disaster Avoidance Experts, a 6-people company of training, consulting, and coaching. And so I learned how to do that training well.
With Kaplan. Excellent. So, Dr. Sapersky, thank you so much for being on the show. How can people find you?
They can check out my book, Never Go with Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters, in bookstores everywhere if they're still open around you. It's published by a great traditional publisher called Career Press. So like I said, if it's open, it's available. If not, just go online on Amazon, Barnes Noble, wherever you get your books. There's audiobook version on Audible. Or iTunes, and of course physical books on Amazon, Barnes Noble. You can check out my resources on disasteravoidanceexperts.com, videos, blogs, podcasts, and so on, classes, especially a free online class at disasteravoidanceexperts.com/subscribe on making the wisest decisions. disasteravoidanceexperts.com/subscribe, free 8-video-based module class. And finally, I'm very available on LinkedIn, So connect with me there. Ask me any questions about anything you've heard in this podcast. Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, G-L-E-B-T-S-I-P-U-R-S-K-Y.
Excellent. Thank you so much. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. For more insights and ideas, please go to LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or iTunes and search for the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
